


You Will Learn Divinity when you speak My Name (or I will burn it into you)

by Atlanta_Black



Series: And it's fucked up, but I'm falling verse [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Author Does Not Know How To Tag, BADASS HERMIONE GRANGER, Character Study, F/M, Introspection, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates, Trauma, also I'm impatient, kind of, no betaes we die like men, polyships for the win, she's so angry, they're all traumatized, we stan hermione granger in this house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-18 01:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21519448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlanta_Black/pseuds/Atlanta_Black
Summary: When Hermione is twelve she almost dies. She thinks it’s the first time she really grasps the reality that the world she’s now in wants her dead. The first time she really understands that being friends with Harry has the potential to get her killed. She wakes up from being petrified and feels nothing but this bone deep rage. Rage that this world hates her so much over something as petty as blood.Thinks to herself that she’s exchanged one set of prejudices for another. One world hates her for her skin and another for her blood. Wonders if she’ll ever find anywhere where she truly fits in....The fourth installment in And It's Fucked Up, but I'm Falling verse!
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy/Ron Weasley
Series: And it's fucked up, but I'm falling verse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1521761
Comments: 10
Kudos: 109





	You Will Learn Divinity when you speak My Name (or I will burn it into you)

**Author's Note:**

> So first of all, I would like to thank Aster for loving this universe so much that I'm just constantly inspired to continue it. 
> 
> I'm just going to thank Michiyo again for prompting this and giving me the idea to create this universe. 
> 
> And thank you Kit for assuring me that characterization of Hermione was on point. (AKA haters fuck off, Kit already validated me and her opinion is better than yours)
> 
> I hope you all enjoy the latest installment in the universe. <3

When Hermione is twelve she almost dies. She thinks it’s the first time she really grasps the reality that the world she’s now in wants her dead. The first time she really understands that being friends with Harry has the potential to get her killed. She wakes up from being petrified and feels nothing but this bone deep rage. Rage that this world hates her so much over something as petty as blood. 

Thinks to herself that she’s exchanged one set of prejudices for another. One world hates her for her skin and another for her blood. Wonders if she’ll ever find anywhere where she truly fits in. 

Looks at Harry’s thin wrists and baggy clothes and promises herself that she’s going to make them regret this. Make them regret ever looking down on them. Sometimes she finds herself thinking that she understands what drove Tom Riddle to the dark. Thinks that if she let herself she could fall so easily into the power that they promise. 

She thinks she hates herself just a little bit for being able to understand. 

⬷

She’s thirteen and standing in between a mass murderer and her best friend. Thirteen and she can feel the anger settling in her bones. The certainty that every year is going to be like this. A fight to just survive. 

For Ron there was a choice. He looked at Harry and made the decision to stand by him. He faltered a few times but he still made the choice to come back. Looked at Harry and said no matter where you go or what you do, I’ll be right here by you. 

For Hermione, there was never a choice. Once upon a time a little boy jumped on the back of a troll for her and something in her shifted. Something in her looked at him and said, ‘Okay. This one is mine’. There was never a choice, never a turning back point. 

Hermione is thirteen and she is ready to die for Harry. Ready to hurt others to keep him safe. Sees that same resolution echoed back at her from Ron’s eyes. Sometimes she looks at Harry’s thin shoulders and tired eyes and wonders, how far is this going to go? When this is over, will I recognize myself? How many lines are we going to cross? 

She’s thirteen and she knows that she might not make it to her seventeenth birthday. There might come a year where she never makes it home. 

⬷

She’s fourteen and she is terrified. Terrified and blisteringly angry. Angry in a way that turns the back of her eyelids red and makes her want to burn this whole world to the ground. How  _ dare _ they put this on his shoulders. How  _ dare _ they place the blame on shoulders that are already being crushed under the weight of their expectations. 

There is a resolution settling in her chest. A promise. An oath. In this world they whisper about myths, about legends. They whisper about how there will always,  _ always _ be someone out there for you. She doesn’t care much for their promises. She is making her own. 

There’s an oath curling its way around her bones. A promise to make them regret ever turning up their lips at her. A promise to make them fucking regret all the times they made Harry’s eyes go blank. 

She came into this world hopeful. Ready to take the world by storm and show them all that she could be. She’s beginning to understand that they never planned on letting her be anything. 

She breathes slowly, lets herself focus on the feeling of air filling her lungs. Sometimes, she looks at the three of them and feels this bone deep certainty that they were all hurtling towards something bigger than they could ever truly grasp. 

⬷

They whisper about soulmates. About how there is always someone out there for you. Always someone who will fit perfectly into your own jagged edges. 

Every time she see Harry and Ginny exchange grim smiles, she gets this sinking feeling in her stomach. There are nights where she gets up and finds the two of them sitting in the common room, eyes blank and staring at the fire. There is dread clinging to her bones. 

Wonders, if fate is really so cruel as to put them with the person who tried to kill them. 

She knows Harry still wakes up crying. Ron looks exhausted whenever he mentions it to her. Ginny’s roommates talk about how she still wakes up screaming. Talk about how she’s punched several of her year mates and keeps putting her fist through walls. 

They’re both ripping apart at the seams and trying to make each other fit into the holes. She wonders if they know or if they’ve both pushed the truth of it so far back into their minds that it’s barely there. Wonders if they’ll break when they have to face it. 

She thinks sometimes that she’s tempting fate herself by having so many negative thoughts. Wonders what happens when you’ve spent almost everyday since you were eleven cursing fate. Wonders if there isn’t something hurtling towards her that she won’t be able to handle. Won’t want to handle. 

She’s still not sure if she cares. 

⬷

She wants to kill her. 

Umbridge. Umbitch as everyone else calls her. Wants to fucking paint the stones with her blood and the urge to do so is so overpowering that she sometimes has to sit and just breathe. Sit in the library and breathe in the smell of parchment. Remind herself of all the reasons she  _ can’t _ just murder someone because they’re bad. Because they’re evil. Because they hurt children. Because they hurt  _ her _ friends. 

She thinks it’s hilarious sometimes, how everyone seems to think that she’s the sane one. The one who no one has to worry about because she’s too straight laced to do anything. Wonders what everyone would think if they knew how close she was to tipping over the edge. 

Sometimes, she wonders if Dumbledore’s got it right. If taking the moral high ground isn’t going to end with them all dead. 

Wonders how many people she loves will die before she says fuck it and takes matters into her own hands. 

_ Just one.  _ Her mind whispers.  _ Just one.  _

⬷

She’s sixteen and she’s bleeding on the floor of the ministry. Bleeding and crying and praying, begging whatever fucking deity is out there to please, please just let them get out. Let her friends be safe. Please let them be safe. 

She would die on this floor if it meant that they would be okay. 

Later, they’ll heal her chest and look at her with sad eyes. Look at her and go, that scar won’t ever go away. It will never leave. Tell her that with sympathy coating their tones and she’ll wonder why they think it matters.

Later, Ron will wake up with strange, looped scars curling around his arms and a vicious, angry light in his eyes that she recognizes from her own. He’ll trace Harry’s edges for days, scared that if he looks away, Harry will disappear. Into the veil after Sirius. Will run off to fight Voldemort by himself.

Later...many things will happen. 

Right now though she is screaming on the floor, blood coating her hands and watching Harry try to get to Sirius. Try to get to Sirius who has already fallen through the veil. 

There’s a moment where she really think that he’s going to break free and rush after him. Where she thinks that they’re going to lose him to his own grief. 

The moment passes and she lets herself pass out. 

⬷

Her seventeenth birthday dawns quietly. She’s spent a very long time wondering whether or not she would bother looking in the mirror. A very long time wondering whether or not she wanted to let something as fickle as fate define who she spends the rest of her life with. 

She wants to say that she has a hunch but she knows that, it could end up being someone that she’s never met. Could end up being someone who’s already dead. She wants to ignore it and just be with whoever she wants to be with. 

She knows though, knows that Ron will look. He’s grown up with these myths and he places so much meaning on them. If he looks and sees someone else, then that’s it. They’ll be over before they’ve even really begun. 

It’s a rainy day, the droplets sliding the window and casting strange shadows over her. She’s sitting in Ginny’s room, back against the door, staring into the mirror she’s propped up opposite of her. 

She doesn’t want to say that she’s nervous. She’s not. She’s uneasy and has so many other things she needs to do that are far more important than this. Than sitting here waiting for some being to tell her who she should spend the rest of her life with. 

The mirror ripples, shimmers and her breath catches. She’s not nervous. She’s not, she’s not. She places her hands flat on the floor, breathes in. The mirror ripples again, looking as if the glass is trying to melt out of the mirror. 

For a moment she sees nothing but her own wide eyes reflected back to her. Her own messy curls and sunburned face. Her own scars. 

The mirror ripples, slides inwards and her face disappears. For a second there is nothing but a vague outline, an impression of a person and then it tilts, slips and Ron’s face is there, staring back at her. She releases a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, a half sob clawing its way out of her throat.  _ Thank merlin _ . She had been so fucking scared but those are his blue eyes and his looping scars. His freckles and his pale skin. It’s him, it’s him, it’s him and then suddenly--

Suddenly it’s not only Ron but  _ him _ as well. Her breath freezes in her chest and she finds herself struggling to breath. Struggling to do anything other than choke down the panic and denial and the  _ no, no, no this cannot be happening.  _ She lets out an ear piercing scream, grateful that she had asked Molly to put up silencing charms. This was not happening, he was not hers, was not Ron’s. He did not belong to them and she was not going to claim his filthy, rotten soul. 

She doesn’t realize she’s still screaming until the mirror shatters, her magic exploding out of her, singing the tips of her hair and shattering the mirror into tiny shards that fly back and hit her. She distantly realizes that her face is wet with tears and blood. That her arms and legs sting. She knows she should move but she is so fucking tired. Tired of this universe constantly trying to destroy her. 

How much more of herself does she have to give before they just let her be. Before they let her and her friends just fucking rest. 

⬷

She picks herself up. She moves on. 

She doesn’t say anything to Ron. If he’s lucky, maybe he’ll only see her. She doesn’t really believe that but she can hope. She buries the thought of  _ him _ in the back of her head, refuses to even think his name. She has a war to fight. She has to make sure that Harry lives. Has to make sure that Ron lives to see anyone at all in the mirror. 

She doesn’t have time to bother thinking about him. 

But sometimes… sometimes when the tent is quiet and she can’t sleep because the fear is still singing through her veins. Sometimes she finds herself quietly mulling over the idea of him in the back of her mind. Finds herself thinking about where he is and how fucking scared he must be. 

Thinks of how pale he had been at the end of sixth year, thinks of how haunted his eyes had been. Sometimes, she whispers his name out loud to see what it tastes like in her mouth. 

_ Draco, Draco, Draco. Draco like the stars. Draco like the ice that you believe yourself to be.  _

She already knows what Ron’s tastes like. Like home and the warmth of the fire in the common room. Like chocolate and  _ I will never leave you, will never abandon you  _ \--

Except for when I do.

She spends weeks wondering if she’ll be able to find it in herself to forgive him. Weeks wondering if even being soulmates is enough for her to welcome him back with open arms. 

He comes back, because he always comes back, eyes troubled and shoulders tense. He’d turned seventeen in the months that he’d been gone. He’d seen the same thing in the mirror that she had and she finds herself bitterly hoping that it fucking haunts him. 

She still doesn’t know if she wants to forgive him. 

He came back. She’s not sure she’ll ever understand how he works because for him, for him they were a choice that he kept making. She thinks he’s finally made it for good but she’s been wrong about that before. 

His eyes are harder though. His shoulders still tense even weeks later. She’s caught him watching Harry several times, hands shaking and mouth pursed. She thinks he’s finally made a decision. Finally realized that no matter what they will  _ always _ find themselves circling their way around Harry. Finally realized, that no matter what, he’ll always come back. 

So, really, why bother leaving to begin with?

⬷

Once upon a time a little girl with bright eyes and gifted with the name of a queen went off to Hogwarts full of hope. Went off full of dreams and aspirations to accomplish as much as she could. 

She met a boy with messy hair and kind eyes. A boy who risked his life to save her. 

Once upon a time a little girl felt something in her soul snap. Felt something shift and tilt and make room for a third soul. Felt something inside of her viciously whisper  _ mine.  _

The mirror may say that she has two soulmates but her soul says that she has three. 

She had been given a chance to turn back once, when she was eleven and staring down the teachers who found them standing over a dead troll. Had been given the chance to send her life down a different path, a safer one. One that didn’t end with her watching her brother in all but blood walk into a forest to die. One that didn’t end with her staring at the ruins of a castle, fingers singed and hair crackling with magic. 

Now she looks at the boy she calls brother and says  _ this one is mine. _ No matter where he goes, or how far he strays, my wand will be there next to his. There has never been a choice in this for me. Has never been another path. 

Where he goes, so do we. Where he strays, so do we. 

The world will burn before we allow him to stand alone. The universe will be brought to its knees before I ever allow him to walk off to his death again. 

_ Beware the sleeping dragon, beware the angered kin. Beware the girls that slumber on, magic curling around them like the wind. Beware the the girl like fire and the boy who’s traveled much too far. Beware the one with deaths hallows burned into his soul.  _

They are coming. They are coming. They are coming. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
